Columbus Mileposts: Extra | Columbus bomber hits Rhodes statue

In a strange sequence of events, the Rhodes statue is linked to the man who was convicted of the 1970 bombings of two Columbus stores.

In a strange sequence of events, the Rhodes statue is linked to the man who was convicted of the 1970 bombings of two Columbus stores.

William Harris, who was then an Air Force lieutenant stationed at Lockbourne Air Force Base (now Rickenbacker), fashioned five bombs from 96 sticks of dynamite and five Mickey Mouse alarm clocks on Aug. 15, 1970.

Two bombs went off, injuring 13 people. Three were disarmed. Harris, who intended to use the bombs to create diversions while he robbed stores, was captured after the second bomb exploded.

Harris pleaded guilty to bombing the department stores and was sentenced in September 1970 to 12 to 65 years in prison. He was paroled from the Ohio State Reformatory at Mansfield after only six years in prison and allowed to move to Oklahoma. His parole ended in December 1978.

However, during the next few years, he returned at least twice to Columbus. On Jan. 6, 1983, less than a month after the Rhodes statue was dedicated on the Statehouse grounds, a drunken Harris crashed a car into the base of the statue.

He told police that he had hit the statue by accident when he cut a turn short. The crash left a 3-inch scrape on the statue's base.

"I don't think he realized it was the governor's statue," Officer Robert M. Taylor said. "But it's like I told him, 'You can run into a pole or a building – anything you want to – but you don't want to run into that new statue.'"

Harris pleaded guilty to drunken driving and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. After serving six months in the Franklin County jail, he went back to Oklahoma, where he was accused of setting a $400,000 fire in a furniture store where he worked.